Bokeh, baby

I'm not really a gadget person--I have a pay-by-the-minute cell phone, and that says it all. But I do love, LOVE my camera, which is a Canon Digital Rebel xti. I am the farthest thing from even a hobbyist as a photographer, but I take so many photos I think I will burn out my hard drive. The digital camera just begs to take shot after indiscriminate shot, and so our photo file has almost 8000 photos, lots of which I could discard, but haven't.

All of that aside, many of photos I take are just experiments with composition or light or subject, whatever. Here is my latest experiment, and I thought I'd share it with you.

Bokeh is the light effect of blurred little hearts that you see in this photo of Ada.  Bokeh is not really the blur, but describes the character of the blurred elements behind the object in focus. There are many great websites that talk about the nuances of bokeh, including this one by Ken Rockwell.  Bokeh can be the way the points of unfocused light blur naturally, or you can make your own bokeh lens hood to create different shapes with the light.  I used hearts, but you could come up with whatever you like.

I love the way you can create bokeh with Christmas lights in the background, and so I tried to make a few shots myself, using my little handmade bokeh lens hood. I learned how from this site on DIY photography.

Here is my lens:

As you can see, it is the sloppiest handmade thing ever.  I used dark paper, some scotch tape, and I cut the heart out with a scissors.   I traced the circular lens and cut a circle from the dark paper.  I cut a strip to go around the lens.  Then I cut a heart in the center of the paper circle.  I taped it all up.  Then I slipped it over my camera's lens.  Making this took me all of 2 minutes, obviously.  

To my credit, I made a neater second one with a cute little Martha Stewart heart-punch, but it was too small, and didn't let enough light in to get a real focused shot.   My first slop-job did the trick with the light, and so it was good enough.

The lens I used is the one I use most: A Canon 50mm 1:1.4. It takes some really nice pictures in low light. I almost always hate a flash, and this lets me do what I want without one, for the most part.


To get the photos, I had to get the blur, or bokeh, far enough into the background, so by trial and error I found that Ada had to move some distance (maybe 5 feet) from the tree to be the object of the focus. Then the background of the lights naturally fell out of focus, and caught the light in the shape of the lens hood hole.


Here are a few more shots I got later at night. This time I had problems getting a good image of the object in front of me, probably because I wouldn't turn on lights. 

And because our tabby kitty kept moving toward the lens to be petted. But I do like these hearts floating behind her silhouette, and while I'm sure I'm alone in this, I love this softy shot of our favorite quilt on my knee. 

If you still have your Christmas or Hanukah lights up, you should make a little bokeh experiment for yourself. Very fun, very cheap, and only takes a few minutes.

Five on Friday

A holiday redux:

1.  It is wonderful to live in a town where you get Christmas carolers on your doorstep, and receive plates of cookies neighbors on all sides. It is not a good idea to eat too many of the cookies you receive, as by Christmas, you will feel more like Santa in a really tangible and pudgy way. 

2.  One of the best parts of my Christmas weekend was the midnight prep the night of Christmas Eve. My sweet husband and I, in our matching pjs, clandestinely filled stockings by the dim lights of the fireplace.   As we carted in the surprises, we had a moment to ourselves to savor the quiet and the magic glow of Christmas.

3.  Christmas cards are so fun to receive. Each day of going to the post box is like getting a little treat. That said, it's with some shame that I admit we didn't send them this year. Instead, I'm resolving to send some kind of cards early in the next year--New Years? Valentine's Day? Sometime before March would be good! 

4.  A good sneeze is ofen a cure for a terrible cough. This sounds like a Yogi Berraism, but it's true. I found it out accidentally while suffering from a nasty little cold we've been enjoying this Christmas. My coughing fits were absolutely relieved by a sneeze. For real. The other thing that helps is a gargle. Or a snifter of Cognac-like drink--Nivan is our favorite choice. 


5.  The week between Christmas and New Years is a gift in itself. Free from deadlines, purpose, obligation, and built-up excitement, each member of our family is visibly more relaxed. I, personally, am going to take a few naps, long baths, and read a few of the books on my list. One of the first on my list of books is the one I got from Uncle E: Serena, by Ron Rash. 


However you celebrate this season, I hope your week was beautiful, and that the next one brings you peace and ushers you into a wonder-filled new year.

A poem for Christmas

little tree

by: e.e. cummings

Little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly
i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid
look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,
put up your little arms
and i'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy
then when you're quite dressed
you'll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they'll stare!
oh but you'll be very proud
and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we'll dance and sing
"Noel Noel"




Merry Christmas!

Ho ho hold on a minute

Cue the music: "It's the most wonderful time of the year." And it's one of the craziest. Regardless of how much planning I do, how much ahead of time finding and wrapping and making, I am invariably behind. It's like a rule of nature.

Of all my lists (and there are many), my list of Christmas projects is usually the longest, and the most involved. And every year, I fail to complete about 50% of it.


I should put it on the calendar:
December 19th: Have a small breakdown because today you will realize the "great Christmas list" will not be finished. Feel sad, feel overwhelmed. Worry about how Christmas will not happen because of incompleted (fill in blank here).


I know I'm not alone in feeling the pressure to "make" a good Christmas for our family. The holidays do indeed conjure ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.

For me, the ghosts of Christmas past seem to urge me to control every element of the whole season with deadly earnestness. As one might guess from my accounts of my own childhood holiday seasons, parts of my childhood were chaotic. Christmas was, for most years, a fun though limited blip on the screen of our family, something to be experienced in its entirety in the space of 36 hours, including the decorating, cooking, and gift-preparation. I am the cliche of the rebellious adult child, and I have shaped my own family life in the mirror image of the compressed holiday. Ours is a lingering, slow experience, with presents or small advent events each day of December. It sounds lovely, and it is. But I've also fooled myself into thinking that the perfect Christmas is a handmade Christmas, from the gifts to the decorations, And it's this misconception that gets me into trouble every single year.

Though I'm not sure you'd know it if you saw me, there is some part of me that shudders with fear at the thought of not making good on all my Christmas plans. Seriously, I quake at the thought of not finishing the stockings for each of us by Christmas eve. Where will Santa put his gifts? Never mind that we do have store-bought stockings that work quite well and look cute. I've dropped the ball--and I'm "ruining" Christmas.

Don't forget the handmade mouse (with babies), the flannel pjs and matching pillowcases, the embroidered felt ornaments for each of the girls, the collaged bookmarks for each of us, the gumdrop chain for the tree, the Santa outfit for Mr. Mouse, the Christmas pjs for Ada's babies, the matching Santa sacks for us to use each year, and the holiday skirt for Ada and the corduroy jumper for Esme. There is much more to add to this list, but I will stop boring you and overwhelming myself with it now.

This is where I stand today, and where I stand on so many Christmases, surveying all of the unfinished things, each in some form of progress, stacked around my studio and serving as reminders of my inadequacy. I just can't do enough.

But wait, I said I had conjured the ghosts of Christmas present and future, and this is what they tell me:
This whole month of December has been full, so full, of beautiful moments for our family. And there are gifts aplenty, even homemade ones, to give to our family. My husband would tell you, as sagely as Dickens' ghosts, that the best present I can give him and myself is to be present. For his ideal image of Christmas, I am calm and with them on Christmas eve, not fussing about the perfect wrapping, shiny bows and the best frosted cookies, etc.

The ghosts of Christmas future will forgive me if I don't finish all the great homemade projects. So will my kids. What they won't forget (or perhaps forgive) is the frantic and manic mommy that emerges on December 19th each year, fitfully aiming for a phantom ideal that eludes her each time.

I have made my lists, and the list is as long this year. But this year is different. This year, I give myself and my family a present of being. Just being, and being enough, too.

I'm signing off now to laze on the couch and watch Grinch with Ada, and then make messy, frosted cookies for Santa.

Because we aren't busy enough at Christmastime

We decided to plan a tea party. For fifteen little girls.
It's going to be the real deal, with china cups and doll companions, and various sweets and cakes and sandwiches, etc.
At least, that's the plan.

So we are whipping this thing together now. And while it's a time-eater, look how happy Ada is about the idea.

Here she is in front of a tea tableau I composed. Now if only the rest of my house looked so orderly...

A long Christmas post for a long Christmas season. Part 2

I will start by saying that there is no tragedy here. I didn’t fall out of the attic hatch, I didn’t get freeze or starve up there. The “adventure” was over before it started. Still—the memory stays with me for a reason.

I was always a good climber. Family legend says that when I was 11 months old, I was found on top of a Danish credenza/bookshelf at the dizzying height of 6 ft. According to the story, my mom plucked me off the highest shelf just as the whole thing was beginning to sway.
As a toddler, I was into countless things tucked safely into the tallest kitchen cabinets, and as a kid I routinely climbed trees all over our neighborhood. Even now, as we were building our current house, I climbed the chimney several times to sit in the top rafters of the attic and look down at the site. This is all a long way of saying I’m not afraid of heights.

But that December day, as I peered over the attic frame, I did feel a bit dizzy. I was giddy with defiance, then unexpectedly struck with a sudden lack of confidence. I had no idea what I was doing, and the clock was ticking—my parents would be home soon. The plans I had thought of so carefully before went from building a tower to the end result of dazzling decorations perfectly placed all over the house. As for the middle—nothing. I was in the middle of the plan, now, and as I realized its failure, I felt the kind of eight-year-old shame that makes you hang your head with tears. That’s what I did, up there in the attic.

Through my tears, I came up with the unsatisfying idea of tossing the boxes down. This plan I modified when I saw I could use the twine on a few of the boxes to sort of dangle it down through the hatch. It didn’t reach the floor below exactly, but it was better than an 8-foot drop. This I did, with the two boxes that had twine. With the other three, I took my chances and just let them drop. One of them made a crunchy rattle on impact, and my confidence dropped further.

Finally, I took a deep breath and thought about getting down myself. In dangling the boxes, I had hit the tower of books and stools, and it tilted even more precariously. The stool had slid completely off the stack, and to even reach the phonebooks, I was going to have to hang by my fingers.

Climbing down the tower was less a climb than it was a decelerated slide down books and leather. Once I had the momentum started of launching myself down and backwards through the hatch, my toes hit the books, which slid, and I was pulled down with the remains of the tower. I ended up on the floor between a twine-tied box and the Danish stool, my legs splayed out on the phonebooks.

I wanted to rest and let my hands stop shaking, but I had wasted too much time already. I did my best to weed through the tissues and twine and shattered glass ornaments (yes, there were many). I found my most beloved ornaments—thickly-scented candles molded into Santas, snowmen, and angels. These I set ceremonially around the room. Using the broom handle as a lifting pole, I nudged the macramé Santa onto its hook in the living room, the macramé snowman onto the front door. The red felt stockings I hung on the mantel, making sure our gold rick-racked names were all facing the right direction.

To my dismay, I realized I hadn’t gotten the aluminum tree down. The now-dissolved tower of books just made me mad, now, and I was too tired to try to go back up. I made do by pulling out my favorite tree ornaments, plastic bears and reindeer, Santas and snowmen, each flocked in fake snow, or fur, or both. I propped these beauties up among the candles on the stereo, making sure the Santas, snowmen, and reindeer were properly mingled with each other in the right combinations.

As I recall, I was in the middle of this very particular arranging when my parents came home. Of course, it had been my intention to have it finished by the time they came home, but I thought it was close enough to done that I shouted, “Surprise!”

Surprise doesn’t begin to describe what they must have felt. Here are my parents, the very definition of harried. Here is me, a bouncy eight-year old in the thick of “decorating” and “helping.”
At that moment in time, our worlds and values were galaxies apart.

I will preface this by saying that my parents are good people, kind people, and they loved me. Poor and just starting a business, they were also were struggling to keep our family in clothes and food. That year in particular they were so burdened with work that they must have dreamed of simply skipping Christmas altogether, with all the work involved with cleaning and taking out and putting away, preparing and planning. I’m sure they saw the Christmas season as one more thing to do on a long, joyless list of chores.
I, on the other hand, was a dreamy little girl, single-minded, and lonely. I wished I could always have the magic of the Christmas season, with all its shininess and possibility. How could Christmas be a burden?

You know what happens in this part of the story, the part where my parents enter the room. As in some fairy tale, the “beauty” of the scene was visible only to my eight-year-old eyes. Far from noticing the magical ornaments and the Christmas possibility they brought, my parents saw instead the flaws in my plan—the broken ornaments, the candles on the dusty mantel and tables, the pile of books and stools, boxes, twine and tissue. They were furious at me for climbing on furniture and irritated that the open attic hatch was leaking all the cold air out. They were angry about the extra mess I had caused and the work it would take to put it back. Mostly, they were baffled about why I would do such a senseless thing. “What was the big idea?” they asked.

I don’t remember what I told them. In fact, my memory of that afternoon is vivid, but only up until the time my mom and dad returned. I have little memory of what happened after that. I imagined I was punished. I imagine there was yelling. I imagine I probably helped put away some of the mess. But how I explained my big idea? I have no idea.

So let me tell you now what I might not have been able to say then.

The big idea was this: I loved Christmas with my family. That day was the most special day in the world to me. I loved spending the day with my mom and dad at home, playing with the toys I received, eating the food they cooked together. It was the single day of the year they did not work, and it was one of the only meals we ate together at home. The hush that fell over the house when there was only fun to do was magic.
Eight-year-old Kirie believed that that magic came from the trappings of Christmas. The ornaments, candles, shiny trees and carols—the power was there, and I longed to bring it out from the attic boxes and into my house. I wanted the calm, and the togetherness, and the possibility, and in my child’s mind, I associated those things with the flocked snowmen and macramé Santas.
To get this feeling then, to feel in control of my world and able to harness such special power—of course I would risk a climb to the attic. Looking back, I would have risked much worse, I believe.



Now I am a grownup, and with my own family, we celebrate Christmas all December. I notice each year that I am filled with an excitement similar to what I used to feel as a child. I notice also that am still trying to untangle some of the childlike associations I’ve made over the years. I still grapple with how I might best control my environment and bring calm and peace to my family. I am working on letting go of that need to control things outside of myself. Even as I realize this, I know that my letting go brings a peace in itself.

These are some of the things I think about as Christmas comes. Of course, there is the magic that the symbols bring—and I see it played out again on the faces of Ada and Esme when they play with the elves and toys in their Santa house. Their smiles light the room when they dance with the same flocked tree ornaments I used to play with. “Christmas is like magic,” Ada says.

I’m letting them feel the magic, and I’m also going to keep pointing out that it’s coming not from outside, but from us ourselves. The decorations are fun, the glittery things are pretty, but the real beauty is in the calm we feel together. Now when we put out the decorations, that is what I focus on.

Thanks for indulging one of my Christmas memories....Kirie

Time flies by our nest!

How the time has flown! Since November, we've had such lovely times at home, I just seemed to fall away from blogging. A much-needed rest, and we've started off the year with renewed energy for school, and cleaning closets, and making fun crafts together.



Here are some great shots of our Christmas at home. We watched Esme fall in love with all the elements of the season, from Santa, to cookies, to the tree, and, of course--presents! Both Ada and Esme had dreams of sugarplums. Esme talked in her sleep about "hohoho," and Ada's dreams included singing (loudly, at 2 am) snippets from "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Though our sleep was disturbed, it was for the best reasons, don't you think?


Esme was amazed to find a Mrs. Potatohead under the tree! She ran around the family room exclaiming, "Wow! Wow! Presents!" And yes, we fortunately did get some of it on video.

Remnants

A remaining decoration from Christmas, and I just don't have the heart to take it down. It's my ambition this spring to make new mail holders like it for other seasons. I see various hangings with hearts and flowers and leaves in the future. But for now, I'm still crazy for this tomten, and will be filling it with Valentines for all of us by the end of the weekend.